The Mayor of Lexington Avenue

by James Sheehan

  “This is a vacation, Bob. It truly is. I’m sitting at my desk in a pair of jeans thinking about the one case I have.” He knew that would get the ball rolling.

  “That’s what I want to talk to you about, Jack, the one case you have. I just received a call from Bill Sampson, the state attorney—the guy you’re replacing. Bill says you’re looking into the Rudy Kelly case. Says you made a public records request for the case file. Says you asked for the public defender’s file as well.” That’s a little unusual, Jack thought. The public defender informed the state attorney of my request to him?

  Bob finally got to the point. “Bill is a little concerned that the man I’m appointing as the next state attorney is asking questions about a convicted felon on death row.”

  The call presented another opportunity for Jack to tell the governor to find somebody else to fill the position. But it was an opportunity Jack did not take. Again, he wasn’t sure why.

  “Rudy Kelly is the son of an old friend of mine, Bob. I’m just doing him a favor, making sure all the i’s were dotted and the t’s were crossed in his son’s prosecution—you know, making sure justice was done. You and Bill don’t have any problem with me making sure justice was done, do you, Bob? I mean, isn’t that a state attorney’s job?”

  “Sure, sure—that’s exactly what it is. I think Bill is just a little mistrustful of defense lawyers. It comes with the territory. I’ll call him and tell him that you’re just making sure things were done properly—kind of keeping yourself busy until you take over. He’ll be okay with that.”

  “Thanks, Bob. Tell Bill it’s an exercise for me. I need to learn criminal law and this is as good a way as any.” Old Bob laughed on the other end of the line.

  “That’s a good one, Jack. I’ll tell Bill that one. He’ll get a kick out of it. Listen, sorry I bothered you. I’ll talk to you soon. So long.”

  “So long, Bob.”

  Jack had sugarcoated it a little bit but what he had said was essentially true. He simply didn’t tell Bob what was going to happen if he found out justice had not been served.

  Raiford was nine miles outside Starke, an isolated complex of rectangular concrete buildings, some white, some blue, some shaped like airplane hangars. There were parking lots, recreational areas and some open fields, all enclosed behind shiny steel chain-link fences topped with razor wire. Guard towers with spotlights were strategically placed along the fence line. If some ambitious prisoner somehow made it over the fence, he would find himself in an open meadow where the spotlight could easily pick him up and the guards could just as quickly mow him down.

  Jack was there early the next morning and stopped at the front gate, where the guard gave him directions to the main building. From there another guard, this one with an automatic rifle, escorted him to one of the three-story concrete buildings. Jack signed in and was handed off to yet a third guard, who escorted him through a gate of thick yellow steel bars that led to a second gate of thick gray steel bars. When the first gate closed, the second gate opened.

  From the moment he walked through the first gate and it clanged shut behind him, Jack was in an alien world, surrounded by concrete and steel, where every sound reverberated. As he followed the guard down a long corridor, he was overwhelmed by the chaos of noise—shouting, screaming, even crying, and the clanging of prison bars opening and closing—the background music of Raiford.

  He was taken to a small room equipped with a gray table and four gray chairs, all bolted to the ground. He was told to wait there and sat down in one of the chairs.

  Rudy was escorted into the room by two prison guards. His ankles and wrists were cuffed and chained. It was a major project to shuffle him into the room and get him seated. The noise of the chains clinking against the metal chair was unnerving even to an old pro like Jack. He’d been to prisons before to interview witnesses but he’d never been to a maximum-security facility like Raiford and he’d never interviewed someone on death row.

  One of the security guards remained in the room standing at the door. Jack’s first inclination was to protest the lack of privacy but he decided against it. He knew the only other choice would put a barrier between him and Rudy and he didn’t want that. They could whisper if necessary.

  Rudy looked across the table directly into Jack’s eyes, smiled and extended his cuffed hands as far as they could go.

  “Hi, Mr. Tobin.” Jack saw the resemblance right away. Rudy certainly didn’t look Irish with his shiny, thick black hair and olive skin. It was the smile and the eyes—not the color but the way they lit up when he smiled. There was no doubt this was Mikey’s son.

  “Hi, Rudy. Please call me Jack.” Jack had to extend his hand almost across the full length of the table.

  “Okay, Jack, thanks. You know, when they first told me a Jack Tobin was coming to visit me, I had no idea who you were. Then I remembered my dad’s stories about being a kid in New York and hanging out with his best friend Johnny—Johnny Tobin.”

  “He actually talked about me?”

  “Oh yeah. He told me how you guys climbed through the alleys, hitchhiked on the back of buses, snuck out down the fire escape—you guys had some life. And I feel honored to finally meet the Mayor of Lexington Avenue.”

  Jack smiled. “He told you about that?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “Did he tell you that it was actually his nickname?”

  “He told me that Father Burke came up with the name but it fit you better. He told me the whole story.” He said it in a way that told Jack Rudy knew about his father’s prediction.

  They were nice memories and it was even nicer that Mikey had told them to his son. They were five minutes into the interview and Rudy had already won him over with his charm and his warmth. He knew instinctively that he was not talking to a murderer. He would have enjoyed reminiscing more with Rudy—but there was so little time.

  “Rudy, do you know why I’m here?”

  “Yeah. I figure you want to help me in some way. Maybe file another appeal or something.”

  “How do you feel about that?”

  “Well, I’ll tell you, Mr. Tobin—I mean, Jack. One of those groups that are against the death penalty tried to help a couple of times, but, um, I guess you can tell, it didn’t work. When you’re in here, you don’t get your hopes up.”

  “Well, I’d like to try, Rudy. It certainly can’t hurt.”

  “I don’t know about that, Jack.”

  Rudy’s answer surprised Jack. He had expected a little ambivalence at first, but this was more than that, more definite sounding. Jack didn’t get it—where was the harm? Hell, he was so sure Rudy would say yes to his representation that he’d opened his office, hired Nancy and started discovery. Who wouldn’t want another chance?

  “I don’t understand, Rudy.”

  Rudy smiled. “I didn’t think you would. But here’s the thing, Jack. A lot of good came out of all this bad that happened to me. My mom and dad got together again. I know seeing me in prison and all was hard on them, don’t get me wrong. But I also know I saw something in my mom’s eyes that I hadn’t ever seen before, when I saw them together. They were truly in love, you know.

  “And I got to meet my dad. We didn’t spend a lot of time together. I mean we only met here in prison. But almost every time was a real good time, and over ten years it can add up. And I learned all about you.”

  Jack started to speak but Rudy held his hand up.

  “Let me finish. Maybe those things would have happened anyway, I can’t say. The other thing is—I never really had any friends other than my mother. You probably read all about me being slow and everything. If there’s anything I miss it’s her and being out on my boat riding up and down the canals. The way I figure it, Jack, when this is all over that’s where I’m gonna be. I don’t understand it all—but I’m happy to think I’m gonna be a part of nature and I’m going where my mother and father are. I’m not praying for any delays.

  “So you can do this
thing and if it works, I guess there’s a reason for me to be part of the world again. But if it doesn’t, I don’t want you to feel bad about it. Okay?”

  Jack didn’t say anything for a moment. He just drank in Rudy’s words. Maybe Rudy lacked book-learning smarts and a respectable IQ, but he had a deeper understanding of his place in the world than most people would ever have. He had no fear about taking the next step. At that moment, Jack took his own next step.

  “Rudy, I don’t know for sure why I’m doing this myself. All I know is that your father and I loved each other and we let things get between us. I’ve been planning on retiring in Bass Creek for about five years. When I went to your dad’s funeral and found out about your situation and where it all happened, I just knew I was supposed to do something.”

  Rudy nodded but didn’t say anything for a long while.

  “Then let’s do it, Jack.” And then Rudy took a breath, like he was really thinking hard about what he was about to say, trying to find the right words. “Jack, maybe you have to do this just to do it, I guess I understand that. But where it leads you may not be what you want or what you expect. Okay?”

  Jack wasn’t quite sure what Rudy meant but the guard signaled that time was up. He just nodded to Rudy and stood to leave.

  “One other thing, Jack. Do you think people can see the future when they’re about to die?” Jack figured Rudy was talking about himself, and he didn’t know how to respond.

  “I don’t know, Rudy.”

  “See, the thing is, the last time my dad came to see me, he knew he was dying and he said the strangest thing to me just before he left. I didn’t understand it at all until now. He said, ‘When Johnny comes to see you, tell him from now on when he’s talking to you, he’s talking to me.’”

  Jack left quickly, ran to his car, drove out of the main gate as fast as he could—and when the razor-wire fences and the towers were safely out of sight, he pulled the car to the side of the road, turned the ignition off and wept.

  Twenty–five

  “How did it go with Rudy?” Pat asked as soon as he was settled at his desk the next morning.

  “Good. He has Mikey’s smile,” Jack said, and then started shuffling some papers. Pat wasn’t letting him get off the hook so easily.

  “That’s it? He has Mike’s smile? By the way, we stopped calling him Mikey about thirty-five years ago.”

  “Yeah, I know, but the reference in my memory bank is Mikey. And that’s not it by a long shot. Rudy was amazing. He was warm. He was friendly. He was intuitive. And he is innocent.”

  Pat noticed how Jack clenched his jaw when he said those words. “Wow! Sounds like quite an interview. I thought he was slow—easily led—and that’s how he got convicted.”

  “He may be slow in the way we measure intelligence. And he may be too trusting—too believing in people—something we commonly consider a character flaw. But he is wise beyond his years in other ways. Pat, I want you to meet him. I’m going back next week. Why don’t you come?”

  “I’d love to. I mean, I don’t relish the idea of visiting death row. But I’d like to meet Mike’s son, especially after what you’ve just told me about him.”

  “Great,” Jack replied. “You’ll see, he’s got a lot of his father in him—and something more.”

  Pat knew from that moment forward that Rudy was going to have the best representation possible—someone who believed in him with his mind and heart. It really must have been quite an interview.

  Two days later, the voluminous files from the state and public defender’s office arrived—in a truck. Jack had the movers load them all against one wall in his office. He planned on taking the next few days to immerse himself in those documents.

  He started that first morning with the initial police reports after the murder. He immediately began to see why the police had focused on Rudy. He had been at the victim’s house on the night of the murder. Pilar Rodriguez had given the police a pretty accurate description although she hadn’t picked Rudy out of a lineup. Raymond Castro and José Guerrero had also been positive in their description to the police—before they disappeared. The blood on the carpet and the broken glass matched Rudy’s—but hell, that was the most common blood type around, so all that did was not rule him out. But then there was Rudy’s confession, or to put it more precisely, Wesley Brume’s notes of Rudy’s confession. Is there a recording of the interview? And if not, why not? So far, that was the only red flag he’d found.

  He next read the coroner’s report—nothing he didn’t already know in there. Her throat had been severely cut by a blade with a jagged edge.

  When he’d read all the investigative material twice—the second time in greater detail—he felt satisfied that he had an overview of the prosecution’s case. Something was gnawing at him, though. There’s something I’m missing in this evidence, something I’m not seeing, he told himself. Maybe that’s it. Maybe what’s bothering me is what’s not there?

  He left the office about three and took some of the files home with him. Pat arrived a little after five with bags of groceries. Jack was sitting on the living room floor, leaning on the sofa. Papers were strewn everywhere. He looked like a college student, albeit an old one, pulling an all-nighter to write a term paper on a subject he knew nothing about.

  “How’s it going? Have you solved the puzzle yet?” she asked.

  “Not hardly. I’ve just jumped into the swamp with the alligators.”

  “Well, I’ll make you a nice meal tonight—fatten you up good—so when they eat you, at least they’ll be satisfied.”

  “Thanks. Seriously, I thought we’d eat out tonight.”

  Pat dropped the grocery bags on the table. “That’s fine with me.”

  “There’s a little Mexican place in town. It’s my favorite place to eat. Do you like Mexican?”

  “I love it, but I can’t go right away. I’ve got to run first and then do my exercises.”

  “I didn’t know you were a runner.”

  “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Jackie boy.”

  “Why don’t I run with you? While you do your exercises I’ll do my swim. Then we can go eat.”

  “That’s what I like—a planner,” she said as she finished putting the groceries away.

  Five minutes later, they were both in their running outfits and heading out the door. Jack couldn’t help but notice how fit Pat was. Her long legs were toned, her midriff was tight, and so was the sports bra she was wearing, compressing those “bumps” he and Mikey first noticed years ago.

  I have to check that out, Jack found himself thinking. But then he caught himself. Whoa, boy! That’s Patty you’re talking about!

  “How far do you want to run?” he asked after they’d both spent a few minutes stretching. “I’ve got a three-mile course, a five-mile course, eight miles, ten—you name it.”

  “Well, since I just arrived in town and haven’t run in a few days, why don’t we start off with three?”

  “Okay.”

  Jack didn’t have to slow too much to stay with Pat. She held a good pace. Probably eight and a half minute miles, he thought. He was usually under eight minutes but this was fine. He’d work up a sweat and it was fun to have somebody to talk to while he ran.

  Pat knew he’d want to talk about the case. He’d lived with those files all day—he’d have to spill some of it out. She decided to be proactive.

  “So what did you find today?”

  Jack shrugged his shoulders as he jogged. They were running along the river. It was a typical fall evening in Florida—clear skies, cool, crisp air. The river was calm. A few small motorboats, a cabin cruiser and a sailboat puttered by in the “No Wake” zone, but for the most part it was peaceful and quiet.

  “Well,” Jack began, “Rudy was definitely at the victim’s house on the night of the murder around the time of the murder. He admits that himself. But he says he got sick and tried to get out of the house to puke and he tripped and broke his
beer mug and cut his hand. Then Lucy, the victim, kicked him out of the house.”

  “So his blood was found in the house?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And the only other blood found was the victim’s?”

  “Yup.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got real problems.”

  “That’s not the half of it. The only way that it could have happened the way Rudy says it happened is if somebody else came to the house after he left. Now there were three guys down the block, two of whom saw Rudy going to Lucy’s and coming from the direction of her trailer later—but those two up and disappeared, and the police never even got a chance to talk to the third guy, he was gone so fast.”

  “Sounds fishy.”

  “Yeah, but sounding fishy gets you nowhere. If there was some evidence that put somebody else inside that house that night, then we might have something. Then the disappearance of these guys might sound and smell fishy.”

  “And there’s nothing like that?”

  “No. These local cops are yokels. Mind you, I’m not very experienced at crime scenes myself, having been a civil lawyer all my life, and this was ten years ago. But when somebody is murdered, especially a brutal murder like this, there’s usually some clues left behind—fingerprints, footprints, hair follicles—something! These guys found nothing. It’s almost as if they found traces of Rudy’s blood and stopped looking.”

  “It could be that Rudy was the only one there,” Pat offered. “You can’t discount that possibility.”

  “I can if I believe Rudy, and I believe Rudy.”

  Pat didn’t respond. They were already back at the house and she couldn’t even remember the run. It was amazing how fast time passed when you were engaged in a good conversation. But that good conversation worried her. Jack’s taken the plunge, but what if Rudy is really guilty or there’s no way to prove him innocent? How will Jack deal with all of that now that he’s met Rudy and apparently is taken with him? From the little she’d heard, it sounded like a strong circumstantial evidence case against Rudy. And didn’t they have a confession as well? Pat suddenly was rethinking her decision to visit the prison. Do I want to get to know somebody—especially Mike’s son—just before he’s about to die?